Looking Up and Looking Down
by Emerald Padparadscha
Summary: Shortly after the ending of Stakes, Marceline takes time to reflect, and Bubblegum finds it hard to demonstrate patience. (Just a drabble for now...potentially could become more.)


After all that happened, letting Marceline have some personal space wasn't as easy as Bubblegum thought it would be. They'd gone for months at a time without speaking to one another. In fact, they'd gone years before Finn had managed to get them more than just arguing constantly from simply being in each other's vicinity. But now…

De-throning Crunchy was as easy as literally kicking him out. Finn held him up while Jake booted him right out a window. It sounded like he landed on a banana guard somewhere down at the bottom. The banana guards were more than happy to have their princess back. Apparently the battle against the Vampire King's Dark Cloud had made quite the impact on them, and the Candy Kingdom's citizens as well. Bubblegum found it nearly impossible to walk any distance on the streets without having to stop every so often to detach a candy person from a leg or an arm.

Bubblegum couldn't keep her mind off of her vampiric friend for more than a few moments at best. Sometimes, if she was lucky, she would manage to go half a day, losing herself in all the repairs the Candy Kingdom needed after the King of Ooo's utter farce of a reign. Nearly a full half of the castle needed remodeling; she honestly didn't want to know what the King of Ooo had been up to. It'd only give her a major headache. That stupid earwax dingus had allowed the streets and houses to get into a pretty bad state of disrepair, too.

It was enough to keep her physically busy for easily half a year. Mentally… She felt like she'd never left Marceline's cottage.

Her axe bass slung across her back, Marceline allowed herself to float freely high in the atmosphere. The world looked a lot smaller from up here. She remembered the first time she had done this, hundreds of years ago. Some of the land masses had changed little by little over time, the concentration of trees and mountains shifting as kingdoms and settlements formed.

"Looks like I'll be watching it change for the next thousand years, too."

It was a concept she'd felt a mixture of emotions about before. There was, at first, excitement. As a messed up kid, living forever seemed almost like a dream come true! Then anger, realizing what living forever really meant. It meant watching the normal people around you – all the people you care about – growing old and dying. Fear… Knowing that, even if the world was to die, you'd die after it. Eventually, she'd grown numb to it all. In the process, she'd lost her moral code along the way. She didn't remember exactly when she'd started picking it up again.

Being mortal again was like going through all those emotions a second time, only faster, and with something new added in. No anger, no resentment. Just…sadness. She would grow old, and she would die...and Bubblegum had given off more than one sign in the time they'd been hanging out as friends that she might just be interested in something a little…more. When the Vampire King had brought up that she'd become a vampire again, part of her wanted to leap in joy at the very idea of it. If her and Bubblegum could be a possibility – a working possibility, not like before – then she wanted to give it everything she had!

"Or… It could just die out like it did the first time." Marceline flipped over on to her back, resting her bass across her midsection as she lightly strummed the strings. No lyrics came to mind this time. Sometimes, hearing the simple, deep chords helped.

As if on cue, her cellphone vibrated in her back pocket. She pulled it out and looked at the text.

[Bub-Bubs: I miss you.]

Marceline smiled. She couldn't resist, and texted back. [What'd you throw at me?]

A few seconds later. [Bub-Bubs: You doof.]

Marceline laughed. Her screen lit up again.

[Bub-Bubs: 3]

She was pretty sure her heart hadn't been beating…which didn't explain how it skipped a beat. Even if she probably shouldn't read into this, maybe it was time to see her friends again.

~FIN~

A/N: Bubblegum replied with an emoticon heart, not the number 3. It wouldn't let me add the rest.


End file.
